Judicial Reform and Bill of Rights

... re the law will have to be modified due to the incorporation of the Human Rights Act into UK law. If the courts refuse to abide by the Act when judging a case relating to the Act, the citizen involved will be able to take the case to the European Court of Justice. This will not only appear bad for the UK judges as they have not maintained the conventions in the Act, but will also cause problems if their case is successful in Europe.

With the UK courts almost representing the British people, there is a possibility that they will have to deal with so many cases that there will be less time to judge other cases such as murders or frauds. Along with the lack of money to fund the courts and legal aid for citizens, money will be needed to train judges to be able to deal with the new types of cases. What the government does not need is the whole annual Budget being spent on funding cases where citizens believe their rights have been infringed. There is also no say on which cases are necessary and what cases aren't, and when the courts have become climatised to the Act there may be a new need for judicial reform due to the Human Rights Act.

An example of a case that may pose problems to UK law could be the recent abundance of asylum seekers wishing to live in Britain. If one person decided to take their case to the UK courts in compliance with the Human Rights Act, possibly claiming their right to enter and stay in one's country as described in Protocol 4, Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights. If one case is ruled successful, then thousands, even millions of foreign people will be immigrating to Britain that will not only cause economic but social problems also. Since the Courts and the judges now have the right to prevent event the Government from breaching the Act, the Home Secretary will have almost no defence in limiting immigrant numbers. Also, if the British Courts were involved in maintaining asylum seekers' rights, it would simply take up so much money and time that the UK judicial system would be extremely corrupted as UK criminals and people claiming impeachment of their rights would have less time spent on them.

Since the Human Rights Act has only been a law in Britain since October, the major impacts and problems of the Act on UK law has not fully become conscious, and the possibilities of future cases cannot be prophesised. The examples in item C only suggest a small number of cases; the extent to which the courts will allow British citizens to claim infringement of rights cannot be predicted either, and now the Act has been passed, the courts now have full responsibility for protecting citizens from any public authority, citizen or the government itself.

Whereas now sovereignty in Britain mostly lies in Parliament, the 'ultimate overseer' will now lie in the courts with the judges, or more likely, in the people. The majority of cases that will be brought to the courts will have a back up from the Human Rights Act; if the victim felt that the case wasn't important enough then they wouldn't have taken the effort to take their problem to the courts. Therefore, there is a possibility that the judges will end up ruling in the victim's favour most of the time as the written Act of rights has to be adjourned to.

The recent developm ...